


never known color

by Rosyredlipstick



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Colors, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 20:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19184680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosyredlipstick/pseuds/Rosyredlipstick
Summary: When Lucifer and his followers are cast out of heaven, Aziraphale’s body is splattered in an oily, pitch black for an entire decade.





	never known color

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight’s dinner is a 2k soulmate fic with a side of pining and long distance longing. Enjoy ur meal. Tip your waitress.

_I have never known_ _color_ _like this morning reveals to me_

* * *

When Lucifer and his followers are cast out of heaven, Aziraphale’s body is splattered in an oily, pitch black for an entire decade.

He is still so young then, the new silk on his back hardly roughed with age, yet he is old enough to know exactly what it means.

But they were angels. They did not have soulmates -- that is God’s first gift to his subjects. The colors, the soulmates. Those belonged to humans.

When it happened to angels it was for...exceptional circumstances. Michael and Lucifer, for instance. God’s chosen commander and his Morningstar, the best of them. Of course, that was...before.

Now, there was Michael, who was hardly able to hide out in a corner of Eden until the dark color faded from her skin as Aziraphale would never admit to doing. Who stood before them all, splattered in pulsing, sickly color and held her chin up.

 _It was like tar down her face,_ Gabriel noted in distaste. _I’ve never seen the color bubble like that._

Michael was an exceptional case, to be an angel with color dancing on her skin. How much more graceful, respectful, powerful it made her, to have that temptation yet completely and wholly resist. Exceptional, acceptable.  

And then there was Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale and....one of the fallen. Soulmates. 

He had none of the reputation that kept Michael safe from harm, safe from scrutiny. He was the guardian of a corner of Eden, a watcher of the humans. He hadn't even visited heaven since the very beginning. 

So, after this realization, after the darkness stopped shifting on his skin and faded into nothingness, Aziraphale absolutely and completely ignores the fact into oblivion.

* * *

When he meets the serpent of Eden, it has been a very long day.

Eve had been smart before the apple, and she spoke hush of a future that Aziraphale couldn’t imagine among the garden, held within. Perhaps he should have reported that. Perhaps that’s what he was truly guarding.

 _It’s too late for those kind of thoughts,_ he told himself as the serpent came before him as man.

They watch together as Adam swung his newly brandished sword. The demon questions him on it and, if possible, he hopes She isn’t listening too closely.

The demon -- Crawley -- laughs at that. No one’s ever laughed at Aziraphale before, especially with the good humor this demon seems to be feeling. Adam and Eve hadn’t done much laughing, even before sinking their teeth into the forbidden fruit. To be in a trapped paradise is still to be in a trap, after all.

He should hate Crawley. Could angels hate?

He should strongly dislike Crawley.

He should. Just like he should have informed Her of what Adam and Eve would whisper to each other during the nights. 

He lifts his wing and allows the demon to edge closer.

* * *

The color continues.

He has come to somewhat enjoy it -- the dark clouds that will drift across his skin on occasion. If anything, it does help to blend in with the humans, despite the unusual shade of it.

He occasionally sees lowly demons crouched in crowds, hiding in alleys, as he walks among the humans. His disgust is automatic, unquestioned. _One of them,_ he thinks, _one of them is where these colors come from._

Is this how Michael feels? Or something entirely different?

He runs into Crawley a handful more times, each better than the last. He’s careful not to get too close, too casual. He already has a demon’s soul printed on his skin; any more association would be overkill.

* * *

Like all roads lead to Rome, all chaos seems to lead to Crowley. Even if the chaos hadn’t truly been “one of this,” he can usually be found in the center of it, dyed linens and darkened shades in place.

The Arrangement works better than he would like to admit. Meeting once a decade usually sufficed, but according to their supervisors, sometimes they’d see each other once or twice a year.

They run into each other in France (and yes, Aziraphale admits his fault in that), and Italy and Greece and colonial America (although that one, they both admit, is better left forgotten).

They eat in more cities than Aziraphale would like to admit. It is nice, nonetheless, Crowley across him with his tea or coffee, Aziraphale with whatever the chef recommended. They exchange favors and miracles and glances over wine.

Thankfully -- or not -- they were both covered in attire that more or less left much to the imagination, including the color that warmed and drifted against Aziraphale’s skin.

* * *

They were on their park bench when he noticed it. Crowley is going on about some annoyance downstairs -- they were bothering him again about starting up “Plague 2” whatever that meant -- and it’s then, when Crowley gestures towards the air as he speaks, that Aziraphale sees it. A light blue is climbing up from Crowley's neck, almost like a blush. The color, while light, is distant and full and could be nothing else.

Aziraphale stares at in astonishment and despite the rudeness, finds himself interrupting the demon mid-sentence. “Crowley,” he says, his voice awed. “You have color.” _You have a soulmate._

Crowley followed Aziraphale’s gaze and covered the space with his hand. Under his hand, the color only seemed to shift further.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered, “it’s embarrassing. How am I supposed to show up at Hell looking like -” He gestured towards the air and spat out his next words. _“Fairy Floss.”_

It was indeed the color of fairy floss -- a light, perfect blue, almost the same shade of heaven in the beginning. Not since the remodel, of course.

Aziraphale, for all this love of the human sweets, never liked the stuff much himself. He preferred small sugar-dusted cookies with jam pressed in the middle or small pillowed pastries that sighed out steam with a bite to the end. Fairy floss was overly messy, much too sweet, and tended to stain everything and everyone it touched.

“I didn’t know,” Aziraphale says, unsure to what he’s referring to. He didn’t know demons could have a soulmate, or that Crowley had one in general. How long had he had it? Since the beginning? Something more recent? Was it a human or another demon?

Not a human.

“I,” Aziraphale was at a loss for words. He swallowed around the rest of his questions, but the one slipped out. “Do you know who?”

“They seem to be happy,” Crowley said, avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze. He gestured to the color on his neck that was slowly fading away, “At the moment, at least. That’s all I know.”

Aziraphale wondered if he should be mentioning his own color at this point. It seemed unfair not to tell him but to tell would feel, at the same time, something like...betrayal.

Crowley went quiet. While this wasn’t uncharacteristic of him, the silence felt heavy and thick.

Aziraphale cleared his throat, “Lunch, my dear boy?”

* * *

“A little demon miracle of my own,” He says, handing the heavy leather bag over and breezing by. “Lift home?”

When Aziraphale looks down at the bag in his hands, his fingers are coated in a dusty, pitch black. 

 _Ash,_ he thinks to himself, _it must have been the bomb._

He hugs the bag to his chest and tries to convince himself so. 

* * *

He is unsuccessful in doing so. 

* * *

 Aziraphale stares down at the thermos for a long while before finally going off to find him.

He isn’t too hard to find -- and while that used to perplex him, how often he and Crowley found each other, it makes more sense now. He wonders what Crowley chalks it up to; he is much too intelligent to assume coincidence.

A part of him wants to be angry with Crowley's request, just as he was on that bench all those years ago. The rest of him wants to beg -- plead -- for Crowley to ask anything, _anything_ else of him.

This leaves him exhausted in a way that reminds him much too much of humanity. 

He couldn’t imagine a world without Crowley, without finding him at the center of everything, without the occasional run in, the occasional “lunch?” and table at the Ritz. But even more so -- if things were to go completely south in the literal sense -- if Crowley did get caught, and his supervisors were ready to punish him in whatever horrible ways that Aziraphale couldn’t even fathom, Crowley would want this.

He couldn't do that, he realized about himself. If Crowley needs this to feel safe, to know he has insurance, Aziraphale can’t keep that from him. He can’t. But he can't just let the demon saunter off with it, knowing the shadows that shift across his skin. 

He holds the thermos out and, just slightly, Aziraphale allows their hands to brush. Color pools out from the minor touch like flowing ink until it’s spilling down his wrist uncontrollably, darkness taking over his hand, then his wrist completely. It flows like it had been waiting, like this was its only chance.

“Go for a picnic,” he weakly suggests, “dine at the Ritz.”

Crowley sees it -- of course he does, even if he didn’t see everything, this would be impossible to miss -- but says nothing. Aziraphale doesn’t allow himself to look down at the spreading sky surely pooling between them, even if Crowley staring silent at Aziraphale's own color.

This was selfish of him, he knows. He wonders vaguely if it was sinful, but doesn't much mind either way. 

“I'll give you a lift,” Crowley says after a long while, “anywhere you want to go.”

He barely manages to get out his next words.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he says, and then he leaves.

* * *

They no longer touch.

It wasn’t like before they were swaying down streets arm-in-arm, but sometimes -- occasionally -- Aziraphale would brush off Crowley’s shoulder after they got caught in the rain, or Crowley would grab the small cuff of his jacket and pull to catch his attention or something of the like.

Once, Crowley had thrown an arm over his shoulders as they walked down a street in the 18th century. It had been crowded, and Aziraphale remembers those brief, warm moments pressed into his side.

And, of course, on their bench, where color would flicker across skin like fireworks, excited both by proximity and contact in equal. Warm color would bloom under clothing -- where it was safe -- and neither would utter a word about the whole situation.

But now -- nothing.

They still see each other -- Aziraphale would be less tolerant of the distance if not -- but...there is always an inch, at least, separating them.

Aziraphale says nothing about it and simply allows Crowley his inch. He stops reaching for his shoulders, stops leaning into his body, stops waiting for Crowley to grab at him when he was ignoring his chatter.

They don’t speak of it.

* * *

Getting drunk probably wasn’t the best thing for them to do.

In their defense -- Aziraphale had just uncovered a crate of 19th-century wine he completely had forgotten about and Crowley had been over and they hadn’t drunk in a while and it, well, was logical.

Aziraphale, somewhere around their fifth or sixth glasses, stood up and swayed. He was going on about the rude customer he’d had earlier that day, who insisted on knowing if the shop held any Virginia Woolf like it was any of their _business,_ when he grabbed for the bottle, still going on, turned, and swayed dangerously to the side. He made a small noise of surprise, the wine falling from his fingers as he tried to steady himself and -

\- and Crowley grabbed his wrist, catching the bottle from slipping. They both froze as warmth immediately erupted from their touch.

“The carpet,” Crowley said, his voice raspy. “It’s antique, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathed out. He forced his gaze down to the print and absolutely not on his own wrist. Crowley was still holding it. “I’ve had it since I got the shop.”

“I know,” Crowley said. Aziraphale finally looked to their joined hands. Darkness splattered across his own skin, yes, but Crowley’s light blue flowed over his fingers like rushing water, bright until it disappeared under his long sleeve. It shifted back and forth like a forever moving pattern.

“It’s…” Aziraphale swallowed, “it’s quite beautiful. Your color.”

“Yes,” Crowley said, “it’s always annoyed me a bit. How pretty it is. No business being that way.”

Finally, Crowley dropped his wrist. The warmth and color began to slowly fade away. Even more slowly, he lifted his hand and held it above Aziraphale’s cheek. He met his gaze, waiting. Aziraphale stared back at him.

Crowley delicately traced his fingertip from Aziraphale’s cheek to his chin, leaving behind a streak of dark color as if his hand were coated in it.

“Black,” Crowley says, his voice smoothed over soft with amazement. He looks down at his hand as if expecting to see the color reflected there. It, of course, was unmarked.

“It’s the color of your wings,” Aziraphale said lightly, “the exact shade.” He’d checked, because that was the sort of thing that seemed like it mattered.

Crowley rubbed his thumb into the black, “How long have you known?”

“The church,” Aziraphale said, “do you remember? The 40s?”

Crowley’s eyes -- unguarded, his sunglasses folded to the side so Aziraphale could see his golden eyes slit in focus -- snapped back to his face. He almost looked exasperated, “The books? Really?”

Aziraphale turned a bit sheepish, “They were _originals._ And - and you saved them. Because you knew I would want them.” He was a centuries-old angel and he was _not_ blushing. 

“I’ve known since we met,” Crowley said. Aziraphale froze, “that I love you, I mean. The blue…” He paused, “Since Rome, I suppose. I’ve never seen the blue -- or you -- so excited. But I didn’t think…” He tapped at Crowley’s cheek -- surely still stained with darkness. “I didn’t assume anything.”  

Aziraphale, in a rare stroke of bravery that felt completely unlike himself, reached and grabbed his hand. Crowley easily laced their fingers together.

“Soulmates,” Aziraphale said softly. Awed, as he was once before.

Crowley squeezed at his hand. The color burst forward like it was rippling, “Soulmates, Angel.” It sounded like an agreement, it sounded like a promise.

Something was coming, both of them knew that. The upper and downstairs were being much too quiet these days, less anxious and more anticipating. Something was coming but this -- Crowley's hand in his, the colors splashing on their skin, joyous -- was now, this was forever as both of them knew it, and that would always be more than enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title, of course, is from Hozier.  
> to explain: im thinking the colors show up with touch/close proximety/strong emotion. soulmate aus kill me.  
> saturday night i made dinner and i was like "oh i want to watch something. hm. nothing on youtube...nothing on netflix...caught up on hulu...oh! why dont i watch that show from tumblr?" eight hours later i was crying into a pillow. the next day i rewatched it all again with rina. im obsessed. i havent felt this way in years. my youth has returned.  
> i wrote this while i was at work pretending to make a spreadsheet. this is my first good omens fic, let me know if you enjoyed! <3  
> EDIT: my dumbass forgot to mention the blue is the exact color of aziraphale's eyes, bc ofc.   
> find me on tumblr at rosyredlipstick and SCREAM about this show with me PLEASE


End file.
